


Aftermath

by whitebeltwriter



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, My babies deserve all the hugs and warm blankets okay, Post Season 2, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:57:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11476185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitebeltwriter/pseuds/whitebeltwriter
Summary: After the Daxamite fleet leaves Earth, Kara spends days helping the city rebuild until there is nothing left to do and she's forced to go home. She finds someone waiting at her front door when she does.





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> So I thought we deserved a better look at Kara reacting to the shit-storm that was the Daxamite Invasion, so I decided to right a little something.  
> ...Which somehow evolved into ten pages of this and that after I decided that certain things just didn't fit with the storytelling.

Kara hadn’t seen this much damage done to her city since last year’s earthquake; and that still _paled_ in comparison to what the Daxamite war fleet had done to her home.

Since she left Miss Grant’s office, and to be honest that had simply been a small break to keep up appearances at Catco, Supergirl had been flying all across the city doing what she could to help.

There had been fires to control, rubble to sort through, and countless families to try and reunite.

Far too often she found that the first two made the last impossible.

But eventually, the last of the fires were out, the worst of the debris had been moved, and those who were the worst for wear were getting the medical attention they needed with their loved ones by their side.

Eventually, there was nothing left for Supergirl to do.

So Kara Danvers went back to Catco and began writing; what’d she’d seen, heard, felt (as a “bystander”), as many details concerning the invasion as the DEO would allow, and some quotes from “Supergirl” praising the city’s fire department, medical services, and law enforcement for their excellent coordination and perseverance under pressure during both the invasion itself and its aftermath.

But even that work ran out eventually (even after Snapper had her rewrite the entire thing five times and cut out over two thousand words) and when Kara tried to find something else to do, Miss Grant yelled at her to go home and get some sleep (“I have no desire to figure out how much your unconscious body weighs when you inevitably drop from exhaustion, Kiera!”). Kara actually considered arguing but then Miss Grant gave her that “look” and she just deflated with a “Yes, Miss Grant” and walked out.

Walking home (and Rao how long had it been since she’d done that instead of fly?) the blonde took in the destruction done to her city and felt her chest become heavier with every step.

_This is my fault._

_All of it._

_If I had just…_

Round and round her thoughts went: struggling to think of which moment, which instant, where a different decision on her part could have prevented so much pain for everyone.

_If I had just punched Rhea in her stupid smug face when she’d first landed–_

_If I had just forced Mon-El to go with his family–_

_If I had just thought to check to see who Lena’s new “mentor” was–_

_If I had pressed that button sooner–_

_If–_

_If–_

_If–_

“–Lena?”

Snapping out of her spiral, Kara found herself in the hallway leading to her apartment, with one Lena Luthor standing outside her door, fist raised, as if she was about to knock.

Startled, Lena jumped back away from the door and spun to face the blonde fully.

“Kara–hi! You’re here and not-” she glanced at the door meekly, “-In your apartment…”

Shaking her head to focus, Kara replied, “Yeah I-uh, just got off work.”

Lena furrowed her brow and looked at her wristwatch. “Just got off? It’s passed eight at night; they kept you at work for this long?”

“More like kicked me out this early…” the blonde mumbled as she finally walked forward and opened the door, beckoning the brunette inside.

“Kicked you out? How long had you been there for?” Lena asked, following her.

_Shoot._ “Uhhhh…not-not _long!_ Just since, like…four?”

“Four?” Lena deadpanned.

“…AM?” Kara added.

The eyebrow went up silently.

“…Yesterday,” the blonde admitted.

“ _Yester_ -Kara!” Lena cried, “No wonder they kicked you out! My god, was there any work left to even do?!”

Kara plopped onto one of the kitchen barstools with a groan, “ _Yes_ , there was! But Miss Grant yelled at me to go home, and I’d already done all I could around the city–“

“Around the–Kara! Are you telling me you went out to volunteer and then on top of that _still_ went into to work for over forty hours straight?!” Lena all but screeched. “How in hell’s name are you even still conscious?!”

“Easy, I’m not human,” Kara mumbled, before silently reprimanding herself. “But that’s no excuse to be rude: did you want something to eat, or maybe drink? I’m sure Alex has a bottle of whatever laying around here somewhere…”

“Unbelievable… _no_ , Kara, stop” Lena moved and put a hand on the blonde’s shoulder, pushing down to keep her in her seat when she made to get up to search her cabinets.

Looking the Kryptonian straight in the eye, Lena said, “I did not come over here for you to have one more thing to worry about. I came,” she swallowed and paused before starting again.

“I came to make sure you were alright–“

“Oh, Lena, you didn’t have to–“

“–And to apologize.”

“-Wha– _apologize?_ For what?” Kara asked, stunned.

The brunette took her hand off of Kara’s shoulder and set about placing bags that had gone completely unnoticed by the blonde onto the kitchen island, not looking her in the eye as she explained.

“By now I’m sure you’ve heard Lillian take credit for repelling the Daxamites and ‘saving humanity’,” she sneered as she unpacked tubs of Kara’s favorite ice cream and several boxes of Chinese takeout.

“But…she’s not. I’m the one who built the device to drive them off the planet…including your boyfriend,” Lena confessed, still not looking at Kara.

“Lena, your device saved countless lives–“

“Yes, by forcing an entire species to either leave or die!” she snapped before deflating. “I’m just as bad as my-“

“ _Don’t_ ,” Kara growled, standing to face Lena. “Don’t you _dare_ finish that sentence, Lena Lutessa Luthor. You made that device with nothing but good intentions, and if there had been another way of defeating the Daxamites _without_ blasting them out of the sky, you would have found it!”

“But–“

“And furthermore, you aren’t even the one who activated the device! Supergirl did!”

“Well, yes, but still–“

“And she waited until the last possible second; she tried everything to end the invasion with as little bloodshed as possible. But did Rhea want to do that? _Noooo~!_ Rather than a fair fight she decided to throw all thoughts of _honor_ out the window and had her ships start attacking anyway! The duel had barely started and they’re just blasting away and I couldn’t just leave to stop them because then she would claim that she won by forfeit and claim the Earth as ‘New Daxam’ forever!”

“Kara–“ Lena tried as the blonde began to pace about the kitchen.

“And I– _she_ –she tried, Lena! Supergirl tried so hard to do the right thing, to be fair and honorable–“

“ _Kara–_ “ the brunette tried again.

“–To make her family proud, and-and I know that I–that _she–did_ succeed because the Daxamites are gone and the city is safe but the city was also burning and crumbling and people were screaming for their loved ones and-and I _tried_ Lena! I swear I did! I tried so hard to save everyone but I just couldn’t and I had to send Mon-El out into space all by himself and he was so good about it and I just-I just–“

“ _KARA STOP!_ ” Lena yelled, all but slapping her hands to the blonde’s face to force her to stop wearing a rut into the floor and look her in the eyes.

“Just… _stop_. Okay?” she asked in a gentler tone.

But Kara just sniffled and said, “I’m the reason the Daxamites are gone. Just like I’m the reason they were here in the first place. This whole thing is _my fault–_ “

“ _Hey_ , hey hey hey, no,” Lena cooed, wrapping the trembling blonde in as tight a hug as she could. “Sweetie no, none of this is your fault,” she spoke softly into the blonde’s ear as the rest of her head buried itself into her shoulder.

“ _Yes it is,_ ” Kara sobbed as she clutched at the sides of Lena’s coat for dear life. “I’m the one who pissed off Rhea by dating her son.”

“Rhea’s failings as a mother do _not_ fall on you, Kara Danvers,” Lena spat, and then sighed. “…Just like my mother’s don’t fall on me…damn it… We are responsible for no one’s actions but our own, and yours were nothing but heroic.”

“ _Sniff_ –so were yours,” Kara mumbled.

Lena rolled her eyes, “Yes, building the very portal that made the entire invasion possible was _very_ heroic of me.”

“You were tricked and then subsequently kidnapped, so it soooo does not count,” the blonde stated, finally wrapping her arms all the way around her friend. “And again, you stopped said invasion with an ingenious device, which further cancels out any supposed wrong doing.”

“ _Tch_ –yeah, right. May I point out that the ‘ingenious device’ you mentioned was originally designed by my insane brother to saturate the Earth’s atmosphere with lethal amounts of _kryptonite?_ ”

“So, once again you took something bad and changed it into something good. Just like with L-Corp,” Kara argued, unconsciously beginning to sway them side-to-side in her kitchen.

“I would not call the banishment/threatened extinction of an entire species ‘something good’; especially when it includes you having to give up someone you love for a planet that isn’t even yours.”

Kara stopped their swaying and pulled back to look Lena in the eyes once again. She hesitated for a second before mentally going _Screw it_ and said, “This may not be the planet I was born on, but it is still my _home_. My friends, my family, every single person I care about is on this planet.”

“Except Mon-El,” Lena reminded her bitterly.

She sighed, “Yes, except Mon-El, and it hurts– _Rao_ does it hurt to lose someone _again_ …”

“I’m so sorr-“ Lena started before Kara gently cupped her cheek and touched her thumb to her mouth.

“It hurts to lose someone again,” the blonde continued sadly, “But I couldn’t-I _can’t_ put my happiness above the entire planet. I already lost one world; I won’t survive losing another.”

“That shouldn’t be your burden to bear! You’ve already done and lost so much–“

“But I can’t just sit back and do nothing! That’s all I did for the first twelve years of living on Earth and it _killed me_ to have these incredible gifts and _not_ use them to make the world a better place. Then Alex’s plane fell out of the sky–“

“–Alex’s plane?”

“-And I found that I _could_ make a difference and-and I did and I’ve been helping ever since and I love it, so, _so_ much,” tears escaped from her eyes and she pushed her glasses on top of her head to rub them away. “But I’m _tired_ , _Lena!_ ” she gasped, “I’m tired of being the reason so much destruction happens in this city just to get to me or to test me! I’m tired of getting almost everything that I want just to have it snatched away at the last second!”

She stopped rubbing her eyes but didn’t replace her glasses; just looked at the green-eyed woman with watery baby-blues, and cried, “I’m tired of _lying_ to someone who has done nothing but help me since the moment she set foot in this city.”

Seeing where she was going with this, Lena said, “Kara you don’t have to–“

“Maybe not but _damn it, Lena, I want to!_ I wanna be selfish and honest and tell you that I’m Supergirl because I’m sick and tired of being so fucking two-faced with you when you deserve so much better!”

Lena’s mouth dropped and she just stared at Kara for what seemed like an eternity.

Blue eyes stared at her.

Green eyes stared back.

Minutes passed.

“…Please say something– _anything!_ ” Kara begged, breaking the silence.

“…Did you just say ‘fucking’?” Lena asked, stunned.

Kara blinked at her multiple times.

“I just told you that I’ve been lying to you since we met and am the cousin of the man who drove your brother crazy and tossed him in jail…and the thing you’re stuck on is me _cursing?!_ ”

“Well I’m sorry, but it surprised me!”

“Me being Supergirl wasn’t surprising enough?!”

Lena sighed and looked slightly contrite. “Well it…wasn’t exactly a ‘surprise’, per say?”

Kara blinked. “Huh?”

“Darling, I’m sorry, but what little skills you have at lying are made utterly useless once someone has spent time with both Supergirl _and_ Kara Danvers. The glasses and hair change _really_ don’t do a lot up close.”

Now it was Kara’s turn to do an impression of a goldfish. She stared at Lena, who fidgeted slightly under her gaze for a few minutes until she spoke again.

“Zor-El.”

“Pardon?”

“My name. It was Kara Zor-El, before the Danvers took me in.”

Lena smiled slowly. “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Zor-El. Would you like some potstickers before they get too cold?”

“You brought me potstickers,” Kara said, slightly stunned and amazed at how this was going.

Lena moved back to the island and continued laying out food. “Yes, well, after everything that happened, all the nonstop hard work I’ve seen Supergirl doing across the city, I thought, maybe, I could…cheer you up with food?” She paused and thought for a moment before curling into herself again. “Although now that I say that out loud it sounds kind of dumb.”

“It’s not,” Kara asserted. “It’s really…you came all the way across a wrecked city just to give me some food?”

The brunette blushed. “Well, you seem to burn off a lot of calories zipping around, and I-I couldn’t think of any other way to apologize for my part in everything that happened.”

“ _Sigh_ …we’re just going to keep going round and round over whose fault it is or isn’t, aren’t we?” the blonde deadpanned.

“Seems that way,” Lena smiled ruefully.

Kara chuckled wetly and rubbed her face tiredly, taking her glasses off and letting her hair down completely. Placing the specs onto the counter she said, “Okay, Miss Luthor, I will accept your apology food–but not your apology itself, because I never needed it in the first place–on one condition.”

“And what condition is that?” she asked, head cocked slightly.

“You stay here and eat it with me. Don’t think I didn’t notice you working just as hard at L-Corp, making donations, ordering supplies, and negotiating with the government to send as much disaster relief as possible. I caught you napping on your couch more than once, but not nearly enough in my opinion. And don’t get me started on your eating habits.”

“Remind me, which one of us is the kettle and which is the pot?” Lena smirked.

“ _I_ get my powers from the sun. It’s not the greatest substitute for actual food, and I hate feeling hungry, but it works.”

“So you’re saying you’re like a flower? Did you have flowers on Krypton?”

“Kinda, we used to, and don’t change the subject. Bottom line is that you need food and rest just as much–if not more–than I do. So either stay and help me with this food, or I will go out and find something to do,” Kara lightly threatened.

“You are not going anywhere, missy! You just said you worked forty hours straight at Catco and I know for a fact that Supergirl was out and about in National City for well over a day before that! Alien or not even you have your breaking point and I refuse to stand by anymore and watch you race towards it head on.” She reached into a bag and slapped a container of potstickers in front of Kara. “So you are going to eat and then you are going to bed and you’re not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re not on the verge of passing out.”

“But I’m _not_ on the verge of passing out,” Kara protested, though she grabbed the container nonetheless.

“Kara, the bags under your eyes could carry a load bricks, and you’ve been swaying for the past two minutes,” Lena deadpanned.

“Oh, I thought it was the building…okay fine! But you’re still joining me!”

“I’ll eat if you eat!”

“Deal!”

“Fine!”

“Great!”

“Okay!”

“Would you like some juice?”

“Some juice would be delightful! I’ll get the plates!”

“None of them are clean, we’ll just eat straight from the containers!”

“May I borrow a shirt then because I think I’m going to spill on this one!”

“Absolutely, I will get you some comfy pants as well!”

“Wonderful, thank you!”

“You’re welcome!”

“Kara!”

“Yes!”

“I think we’ve hit the ‘punch-drunk’ part of being exhausted!”

“I think you’re right, pass the teriyaki sauce please!”

“Certainly!”

***

An hour later found the two of them draped on Kara’s couch with some animated movie playing on the TV. Lena was curled into the corner, legs propped on an ottoman, while Kara lay sprawled across its length with her head on Lena’s abdomen.

“…Hey, Kara?” Lena whispered.

Kara mumbled a sleepy, “Hm?”

“Where’s Alex?”

“Ah, she’s busy rebuilding the DEO building. Tried to help but it was mostly delicate tech and science stuff so I left to help rescue efforts with heavy loads. We’ve been texting, she and the gang are good but there’s so much to do…”

“And you have done enough– _yawn_ –for three days. Sleep time now.”

“ _Fine_ , but you too– _yawn_. Power naps can only get you so far.”

“Fine, fine, if it will make you feel better– _yawn_ –I will sleep on your wonderfully broken in couch,” Lena agreed, dropping her head back onto said couch.

Kara raised her head. “On my–no, Lena, you are my guest, you take the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Not on your life, _Supergirl_. I am not kicking National City’s favorite hero out of her own bed three days after she saves the world. _Again_.”

“You’ve kicked be out of my bed after I’ve saved the world before?”

“No, the again was concerning you actually saving– _nevermind_ the point is that I’m taking the couch.”

“Guests take the bed; hosts get the couch. Those are the rules.”

“What rules?”

“Danvers’ rules.”

“My, aren’t we full of ourselves tonight,” Lena teased.

“Wha-oh. I get it. My point still stands though. And it’s my apartment so what I say goes.”

“Is that so?” the brunette smirked.

“Yup,” Kara confirmed plopping her head gently back onto Lena’s stomach.

“Sooo if you were to say that we were going to _share_ the bed, I would have no choice but to do so?”

The Kryptonian shot up spluttering about consent and respect and other things that Lena missed from laughing so hard her jaw ached.

“Ka- _Kara_! I was _kidding_!” she gasped, holding her stomach; why had they eaten so much food at once?

“O-oh,” Kara calmed down. “Okay, good. Good,” she said, deflating back into the couch, this time with space between the two of them.

Noting the sudden change, Lena left her giggles trickle away as she sat up and took a closer look at her friend.

“Kara?”

“Yeah?” she replied, rubbing one eye with the palm of her hand.

The human bit her lip. “Would…would you be opposed?”

Kara peeked over at her curiously. “Opposed?”

“To us, sharing a bed?” Lena blushed. “I-uh…actually, wouldn’t mind the company…if-if it isn’t too much trouble?”

The blonde looked at her as a small smile grew slowly on her face.

“No, Lena. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all.”

With that, Kara turned off the TV, stood from the couch and held her hand out to Lena.

Lena glanced between her hand and her for a moment, slightly scared of the implications, the possibilities, a single hand possessed.

They still had a lot to talk about: each having their own amount of guilt over the events of the past week. The surfaces of said guilt had barely been scratched for either of them.

But her belly was full, the hour was late, and the promise of sleep waited in the palm of that hand.

Things could go horribly wrong.

But they could also go oh so right.

Lena took a breath.

Then she took Kara’s hand.

And they both gave a sigh of relief.

Today was done.

Tomorrow was a ways away.

For now they would rest and take comfort in eachother.

Everything else could wait until the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies if anyone was ooc. Let me know if you guys would be interested in a sequel. These two still have a lot to talk about come morning.  
> And as always, please review; your words feed my soul.  
> ...And ego.  
> ...And just make me stupidly giddy and smiley.  
> Have a good day!


End file.
